Previews

Ultimate Spider-Man

One of the new tweaks takes the idea of sub-missions in Spider-Man 2 and fleshes them out a little more. As Spidey fights villains around the city, average citizens are caught in the crossfire. It's admittedly a blanket statement that most people would agree is common in comic book-related works (innocents in the path of danger needing rescue), but not something that gamers have had to deal with in the midst of a boss battle -- at least not to the degree they'll face in USM. As witnessed in our earlier coverage, as Spider-Man fought Green Goblin, and during my hands-on fight with Beetle, Ol' Webhead will have a lot on his plate as he must rescue people caught in the middle of the level boss' path of destruction. In addition to going head-on with some badass villains, players will also be on another timer regarding their ability to rescue innocents from debris and burning cars. If Spidey can't beat the clock and save people in time, the mission is over. It's a nice twist that helps immerse players in this revised storyline. The other great immersion comes in giving players something they haven't been able to do yet: play as the antihero. So, while playing as Spider-Man in USM should come as second nature to fans of Spider-Man 2, it's the other main character that most readers probably want to know about.

One of the biggest twists in Ultimate Spider-Man that's got gamers excited is the ability to be Venom. Judging by the short time spent on the controller, Mr. Brock handles like a radically different beast than young Peter Parker. Whereas Spider-Man's combat system seems more based in acrobatics and high kicks, Venom is a burly brawler. Apropos to the nature of the character, he's pretty down and dirty. While he uses the same punching and kicking system that Spidey has, he's got a substantial amount of more power. In a move that might coincidentally remind players of the recently released Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, Venom can toss vehicles at would-be assailants. At the cost of such power, however, the Symbiote Suit continuously drains him of energy. In turn, players must be mindful of the amount of damage he takes from gunfire and boss attacks and feed people to the suit. Through holding down the "feed" button, he will absorb anyone from an armed mercenary to an innocent pedestrian into the suit and drain their lifeforce to keep his health going.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get hands-on with Venom outside of a demo level in which I fought onslaughts of respawning characters (almost to the point of redundancy), so it still remains to be seen how he handles within other parts of the game, such as the exciting battle with Electro that Treyarch demonstrated earlier in August. If players should expect anything from getting hands on with the character, it's to expect something dramatically different than anything they've done during Peter Parker's adventures.

All in all, Ultimate Spider-Man is shaping up to be one of the best-looking games of the year. The addition of Venom is going to a nice twist, since he feels fundamentally different than the evolving Spider-Man we've been playing for five years. If there are any minuses, it's that Venom still feels unproven as a standalone character, in part because I used him on a very basic level, and not against a boss. In the end, though, that's not so much an issue of gameplay as much as an unanswered question that's still up in the air. Everything else has fallen together beautifully, and Marvel fans should be happy with the end results when the title ships in a few weeks.